A truck driver who caused a nine-vehicle crash on Interstate 71 in Delaware County that claimed the lives of a young couple and their family now faces prison time.
A Delaware County jury found Modou Ngom, 51, guilty of three counts of aggravated vehicular homicide and five counts of vehicular assault in connection with the April 11 crash on I-71 near the U.S. 36 and State Route 37 interchange.
Dr. Lynnea Soposki, 36, Luke Soposki, 37, and the couple's one-year-old son, Logan, all died in the crash. Dr. Soposki worked as a veterinarian at the Muirfield Animal Hospital in Dublin. The family lived in Ashley in Delaware County.
Dispatch news partner WCMH/NBC-4 reported Ngom will be sentenced on Oct. 29.
The jury deliberated for about two hours before
reaching its verdict, NBC4 reported.
What happened in the crash that killed the Soposki family?
The crash happened in a construction zone that is part of the Ohio Department of Transportation's Improved Interchange at I-71/U.S. 36/SR37 and the Proposed Sunbury Parkway project. Several days before the crash, ODOT reduced the northbound I-71 ramp to U.S. 36/SR37 to one lane.
Ngom was driving a semi tractor-trailer that crashed into traffic backed up in the I-71 north lanes. He ran into the traffic, setting off the chain-reaction crash. The Soposki family's vehicle caught fire in the crash. Three other people were hurt in the crash.
Relatives of the Soposkis have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Ngom, as has one of the women injured in the crash.
Crash received new attention after political ad controversy
Following the crash, Andy Wilson, at the time the Ohio Department of Public Safety Director and now Ohio Attorney General, said the state was giving information to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for further investigation.
Ngom allegedly came into the country sometime in the 1990s and used different names to get state and federal identification, including an Ohio driver's license and a commercial driver's license.
Ngom became a naturalized U.S. citizen under a different identity, Wilson said in a statement, and then changed his name back to Modou Ngom in 2015.
Amidst a closely contested race for U.S. Senate, an ad supporting current Republican Sen. Jon Husted began airing that referenced the crash. The ad was released by the National Republican Senatorial Committee in August.
The ad attacked former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown's immigration stances, including allowing "dangerous illegals" into the country, cutting to Ngom and crash footage. The ad also includes a photo of the Soposki family that the family never agreed to allow to be used, the family said in a statement.
"Lynnea and Luke were not political symbols ... Our grief is not raw material for a campaign and their images are not public property to repurpose for anyone's advantage," the family said.
Husted told reporters his campaign had asked the National Republican Senatorial Committee to take down the ad.
Bethany Bruner can be reached at bbruner@dispatch.com.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Delaware County jury convicts man in fiery crash that killed couple, baby
